ABSTRACT
Evolutionary psychologists test their hypotheses using methods shared with other psychologists, including observational techniques, questionnaires, and neural imaging. They also use methods not shared with other psychologists. For example, they borrow from archaeology, comparative biology, ethnography, and paleontology (cf. Confer et al. 2010, 112). Evolutionary psychologists widen the scope of hypothesis-testing methods because they have the double burden of testing both psychological and evolutionary hypotheses. Evolutionary hypotheses are claims about the evolutionary process that led to the representation of a given trait in a population. Such hypotheses cannot be tested by simply establishing the prevalence of the trait in a population or by establishing that some individuals have an underlying mechanism that reliably produces the relevant trait. Barrett emphasizes that evolutionary psychology must be guided by the logic and research methods of evolutionary biology if it is to live up to its name (2015, 12).
